Who's the biggest terrorist...?

Country is shaken by the back to back bomb blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad.

People are already ready with solutions. “Ban SIMI” says one. Others say bring back some strong law like POTA. Some are blaming it on SIMI, Indian Mujahudeen OR HUJI, some on the current national ruling party and rest on the lack of a common federal intelligence agency.

So who’s the biggest terrorist group…SIMI, HUJI, Indian Mujahudeen OR some one else…?

Let’s move little away from the terror strikes. Lets talk about India in general, a country with 70% of its population living in villages and 60 % of its population earning their bread through agriculture. Govt. marks lots of funds in the budget year after year for the welfare of the farmers. But the daily news paper headings about the farmers committing suicides say the plight of the farmers aloud.

If not farming then what will they do….? Govt. says we will give you guaranteed jobs for 100 days in a year through National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). Crores being marked for the rural employment guarantee scheme, but again the official machinery is found to be too greedy for the goddess Laxmi.

So where are all the funds going ? It’s going in the foreign education of the kids of our Netas, Europe holiday trips of bureaucrats and rest all in their safe bank accounts across the globe. So they are enjoying life over the miseries, plight and dead bodies of thousands and thousands of their own countrymen.

So who’s the biggest terrorist group…SIMI, HUJI, Indian Mujahudeen or our politicians and other government officials…?

Now let’s move to environment. India enjoys a very low per capita CO2 emission of 1.67 tones/capita. But the reality is that a relatively small wealthy class of 1% of the population in the country is hiding behind a huge proportion of 823 million poor people for the CO2 emissions. In an upper-middle-class house five air-conditioners hum to the tune of eight kilowatts of power which is enough to light two villages. Their driver picks up a fifteen rupee loaf of bread by driving a 3000 cc Pajero to the local market, using up two litres of fossil fuel that took three million years to form deep below the earth crust.

Upper and middle class are not ready to reduce their CO2 emissions, and by that they are not only contributing to global warming, but also denying the hundreds of millions of poor in the country, access to development. Moreover the climate change is threatening the poor communities with economic devastation in the form of floods, droughts and ruined harvests.

Upper and middle class are earning more money to pollute the environment more. Their aspirations are giving birth to shopping malls in every corner of all the big and medium cities, which are hungry energy guzzlers and produce tones of packaging waste. They are moving from two wheelers to cars, cars to bigger cars. With more earnings their cars just get bigger and more fuel inefficient and they move further away from the concept of public transport. Metropolitan cities are given preference over villages while doing electricity load shedding so that the riches can enjoy their air conditioners and other energy hungry gadgets, when a loan ridden farmer is waiting to run his irrigation equipment.

So who’s the biggest terrorist group…SIMI, HUJI, Indian Mujahudeen, our politicians and other government officials or you and me?

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Technology is all about helping people...

I think technology is all about helping people. Every segment of the social sector is a technology consumer. From planning the logistics of feeding thousands of refugees, to delivering vaccines, to providing education, to creating job opportunities or to advocating for human rights, technology tools are used to improve the outcomes and often directly deliver the social benefit. So many motivated people like you are reading this issue of Sattva and getting connected to the social sector…All thanks to technology.

We should be bold enough to confess that technology has generated tremendous wealth and lots of opportunities for many of us. People are earning unheard salaries in IT and the related offshoots of technology. For those of us who have achieved financial success, there is frequently a need to give back. As a group, technology entrepreneurs are just beginning to explore their interests in the larger society. In the last decade, a formerly apolitical community has been exercising its increasing muscle. The great example that Indian IT companies Wipro Technologies, TCS, Satyam, Infosys etc. set with their philanthropic commitments sets the stage for increased involvement by the high technology entrepreneurs in society's larger issues.

However I feel technology development is not driven to maximize all of society's goals. Applications that make money get built, while applications that don't make money don't get built. Bridging the gap between the possible and the profitable in socially beneficial applications of technology is critical, and it's an important effort that requires the attention of the technology community. The first is the decision to go after only consumers at the top of the economic pyramid. Intellectual property-based technology companies calculate their economic returns on the basis of pricing decisions, essentially on what prices they deem the market will bear.

I believe that the model of social enterprise helps address the above said market failures. Social enterprises are hybrid organisations with two bottom lines: social and financial. By having a social bottom line, these businesses choose to serve the underserved, even when these communities may not offer a significant financial return. I believe that increased investment in technology that directly supports the social sector will offer strong results for society. The social sector lags the for-profit sector in adopting technology tools that could significantly enhance the effectiveness of the sector. With an incremental investment equal to one or two percent of the current funding flowing to the philanthropic sector, it seems clear that the sector could become five to ten percent more effective with the same amount of resources.

I am really impressed with one of the amazing initiative of social entrepreneurship using technology in the field of Micro Finance. Mohd. Yonus gave the world the great mantra of micro finance in the form of Grameen Bank but Rangde.org used the concept of micro finance, mixed it with technology to connect the India that is economically progressing rapidly and the India that has been ignored. Rang De is an initiative to make low cost microcredit a reality. By enabling individuals to become online Social Investors, Rang De hopes to bring microcredit and online lending to the forefront. RangDe is trying to create a sustainable alternative to charity by promoting online lending as a way of life. We are at a critical intersection in the evolution of technology and social enterprise. Working together, the technology, nonprofit, philanthropic and prospective user communities can ensure far-reaching success in the long-term effort to fulfill the social potential of technology.

Now is the time to together move confidently toward that future.